


Chimera

by bauble



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-16
Updated: 2018-05-20
Packaged: 2019-05-07 17:13:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14675724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bauble/pseuds/bauble
Summary: An Inception AR set in the canon universe.Written for AE Match in collaboration with Enoughglitter.





	1. Lioness Passant

**Author's Note:**

> "A thing of immortal make, not human, lion-fronted and snake behind, a goat in the middle, and snorting out the breath of the terrible flame of bright fire".  
> \- Homer on the chimera, _The Iliad_

“This is clever.” The client—Arthur, Eames reminds himself—walks around the room clockwise, stopping in front of every mirror as he goes. “Which are you?”

There are thirty mirrors arranged in a circle around Arthur, each featuring an image of one of the numerous people Eames can forge. They range from infant to elderly, ugly to handsome, large to small. The collection is evenly divided between men and women, with a few hovering somewhere in between. 

Typically, the client will make his preferences known directly (walking straight up to the one he likes most) or indirectly, gaze flickering to one mirror repeatedly even as they make a great show of approaching another one. Once they’ve chosen, Eames forges the favorite and steps forward to meet the client, ready to change at a moment’s notice based on the reaction.

Arthur had indicated in his pre-appointment questionnaire an interest in both men and women, so Eames settles into the sultry female voice he defaults to when there’s no stated preference. “Come find me,” Eames says, keeping it playful and coy.

The corners of Arthur’s mouth quirk up at this, but he doesn’t cease ambling through the room, refuses to show one forge favor over another. It’s somewhat irritating, but Eames has learned that patience is key to this profession—especially given the high levels of guilt and shame often involved. “You’re already here, though," Arthur says. "And you could be anyone—everyone.”

“I could be,” Eames agrees. “But that is precisely my point. I could be anyone you desire. You’re in charge here.” He isn’t so blunt usually—most clients need gentle nudges and the illusion of romance to ease them in—but Arthur moves like he’s accustomed to being in dreams, confident and easy. 

“What if I don’t know what I want?”

“Then I guess you’ll have to be happy with what you get.” Eames strolls forward into the spotlight—calculated to be as flattering for this forge as possible—and tosses long blonde hair over his shoulder. “My name is Eve.”

“Eve,” Arthur repeats, lips quirking again. “Nice to meet you. I’m Arthur.”

“A pleasure, I’m sure.” Eames sways forward to offer a hand. Arthur takes it and, after a pause, bends down to kiss it. Eames can't tell whether he's trying for gallant or mocking, yet. “Do you like the beach, Arthur?”

“Not really.”

“Neither do I.” With a thought, the mirrors disappear and a bedroom in a luxurious hotel suite swirls into being around them. “May I offer you some champagne?”

“I think I had enough champagne topside.” Arthur surveys the room with great interest. “So tell me, is she a real person or a composite?”

Eames walks over to the dresser to put his purse down, bending slightly at the waist so the fabric of his dress draws tightly against his arse. “A regular romantic, aren’t you? Asking a lady if she’s had work done not five minutes after introductions.”

“I’m curious.” Arthur takes a few steps forward, which Eames takes as a good sign, even if he's not sure he likes the direction this conversation is taking. “Your work is very convincing—the face, the voice, the way you walk—not even a flicker of anyone else.”

“I aim to please,” Eames turns to face Arthur again, tilting his head to one side. He keeps his expression pleasant enough, but the annoyance is starting to grow.

“Does this usually work on johns?" Arthur crosses his arms and raises an eyebrow. "The strut, the breathy voice, the—champagne on offer?”

“And does that smug condescension wrapped up in boyish charm and an expensive suit usually work on women?” Eames counters before he can stop himself.

A slow smile spreads across Arthur’s face. “Now that’s more like it. I knew there were some sharp edges hidden under the mundane pleasantries.”

Eames takes a deep breath and reminds himself that this is just a job, and Arthur is just another john. Even if he is strikingly handsome—handsome enough, perhaps, to have caught Eames' eye under different circumstances. 

But those are not the circumstances they are in; Arthur paid for his time, and Eames has a job to do. That physical attraction appears to be clouding his judgment is surprising, and a thought Eames tucks away to be examined later, after the appointment is over.

“Is that what you like?” Eames asks as he lets one shoulder of the delicate shawl he’s wearing slip down. Fortunately, Arthur’s eyes track the movement. “A little sharp with your sweet?”

“Who said I liked sweet to begin with?” Arthur asks as he begins to undo something at his sleeves—cufflinks. A meticulous man, Eames thinks, down to the understated but playful pattern of his tie and the immaculately tailored cut of his jacket.

“Would someone a bit…” Eames lets his shawl drop to the ground, baring both shoulders, “taller be more to your tastes?”

“This is fine,” Arthur replies as he steps forward into Eames’ space. There’s hunger in his gaze now, finally replacing the detached curiosity, and Eames finds himself relieved.

Up close, Arthur is just as handsome as he first appeared at a distance. Most clients try to improve on their looks in dreams, wiping away acne or scars, dropping weight and years. The effect is passable if sloppy, and usually impossible for an amateur to maintain under stress or up close. This leads to confused, blurred faces and outlines once Eames is in kissing range, a phenomena he used to find jarring but is now oddly comforted by.

But Arthur’s features remain stable even as he presses Eames backwards onto the bed. Either he really is this gorgeous in real life or he’s skilled enough to maintain the illusion. Both are intriguing possibilities—but, like Arthur’s curious effect on Eames’ self-control, are also notions to ponder another time.

For now, it’s time to get to work.


	2. The Goat

Eames wakes up to the sound of Yusuf repeating his name, and to the rather insistent (and unpleasant) shaking of his shoulders. “You have another appointment,” Yusuf says.

Eames blinks, hard, and tries to shake off the persistent grogginess that accompanies dream-death. “I’m nowhere near ready for a back-to-back.” He sits up and tries to remove the IV, but Yusuf stops him.

“Sorry,” Yusuf says. “Management says you have to. The client pays upfront and he’s a repeat with long-term potential.”

“Can’t someone else handle it? I just got out of a very realistic buried alive scenario.” Eames rubs his eyes and tries to push back the phantom smell of damp soil, the memory of its texture in between his fingers still too vivid.

“We tried, but he specifically requested you.” Yusuf sounds apologetic as he passes Eames a file. "It's someone you saw about a month back—Arthur.”

It takes a few seconds for the name to sync up to a face in Eames' mind. When he opens the file he’s only half-surprised to find that the memory and dream do, indeed, match the physical reality. “He liked the hot blonde. I referred his file to Tadashi.”

“Tadashi followed your notes down to the letter in an appointment with Arthur two weeks ago. But apparently no one but you will do,” Yusuf replies. “Today Arthur asked specifically for the person he met with in his first appointment and not the second.”

Eames scans the folder, which is comprised mostly of security camera photos of Arthur sitting in the waiting room. The background search turned up nothing—not surprising, considering Arthur Penrose probably isn’t his real name. What’s more intriguing, however, is that he’s been paying the hefty fees in cash; no wonder management wants to keep him around. "The intake sheet says he's been here for over an hour. Couldn’t you get one of the others to pretend to be me?”

“Already tried,” Nash says, sitting up in one of the other beds, rubbing at his wrist. “Even did your Lady Eve, but he didn’t buy it. Shot himself right out of the dream.”

“Shot himself out?” Eames repeats. “Who the hell—”

“I know,” Yusuf says. “Needless to say, he was displeased about the ruse and demanded you or his money back.”

“Great.” Eames pinches the bridge of his nose. “Do we know what he wants aside from me?”

Yusuf and Nash shrug unhelpfully, and Eames sighs as he lies back down on the bed. “Very well. Put me under and I’ll deal with him.”

* * * * * *

“I hear you’ve been looking for me,” Eames says as he makes his way down the museum hallway, to the room where Arthur is studying a painting with great interest. Eve’s heels click lightly across the pink and green marble flooring.

“In a manner of speaking,” Arthur says, looking back over his shoulder. His neck is a smooth, elegant line, and Eames is struck again by how very handsome and youthful his face is. “They sent me some hack pretending to be you.”

“Some hack?” Eames echoes, pretending to be offended as he halts a few feet away from Arthur. “How do you know that wasn’t me?”

“Not nearly insolent enough. And she seemed to actually understand the meaning of the phrase, ‘the customer is always right.’” Arthur turns his face back towards the painting again, as if in dismissal.

“I know how to do my job,” Eames says, voice sharpening in spite of himself. “What people really want and what they think they should want are often vastly different things.”

“You think I don’t know what I want?” Arthur’s tone is amused, smug. 

“I think you’re a pain in my arse,” slips out before Eames can stop it. He winces; this is why he doesn’t do back-to-back appointments—because he gets tired, his judgment becomes compromised, and he loses track of the part he’s supposed to be playing. This is especially true when the client in question is one Eames actively wants to have sex with as himself—or, in this case, have sex with _again_.

Arthur laughs and turns to face him fully. He’s wearing a three-piece suit, cream jacket and pants with a darker waistcoat, all marvelously fitted to the lean body underneath. Eames remembers everything: the compact muscle, the scarring across his arms and chest, the shock of dark hair against pale skin. 

Eames trades in idealized bodies and idealized sex daily. One more body shouldn't affect him like this. And yet.

“Can you do her?” Arthur asks as he jerks his chin towards the Warhol on the wall. Thankfully, it’s nine squares of Marilyn in hot pinks and blues as opposed to soup cans (Eames has forged inanimate objects in the past, but none of the endeavors could ever have been considered unqualified successes).

Eames bats his eyelashes, suddenly heavy with old-fashioned kohl and mascara. “Would you like me to sing happy birthday or about how diamonds are a girl’s best friend?”

“Amazing,” Arthur breathes as he begins to circle Eames. “How about Elvis? Gandhi? Che Guevara?”

Eames dutifully shifts into the versions of those people at the height of their fame, basking in Arthur’s appreciative gaze. “You know there’s someone I can refer you to who specializes in celebrities and famous figures. This isn’t really my forte.”

“And yet you do it so well anyway,” Arthur says, and Eames studies him, not sure whether he’s being sarcastic or serious. Clearly, being around Arthur short-circuits his ability to engage in any sort of higher cognitive reasoning. He needs to find someone else to take Arthur on as a client immediately, before this devolves into something worse than an ill-advised and inappropriate crush. 

Eames cocks the sawed-off shotgun in his arms and takes a few steps away to peer through a door. “Tell me, does one of these hallways lead into a bedroom of some sort? Much as I enjoy desecrating the temperature-controlled solemnity of a museum, marble does tend to be hell on the knees.”

“But of course.” Arthur gestures at a door that was most definitely not there a moment ago. “After you.”

Eames walks through the door first—combat boots making a rather different sound than the heels—into a Victorian bedroom, complete with a fireplace and high wooden bed stacked high with floral-patterned pillows. The walls are paneled in dark walnut, the curtains are a gauzy lace, and intricately stitched doilies cover practically every piece of furniture in the room.

“Why, Arthur.” Eames hooks a pink doily on the bed with his gun and flicks it onto the floor. “I had no idea.”

“I even threw in some rugs so the hardwood floor wouldn’t hurt your tender, delicate knees.” 

“You do realize I’m wearing kneepads under this uniform, don’t you?” Eames props the shotgun against the vanity. 

“And here I was, trying to be considerate.” Arthur takes a few steps forward to straighten Eames’ collar. “Now, are you interested in slipping into something a little more comfortable?”

“Are you referring to the uniform or the _guerrillero heroico_?” Eames shifts into Eve, still wearing the military fatigues. “Because aside from kneepads, I can assure you there’s nothing underneath the uniform.”

“I think I’m in the mood for someone—tall today,” Arthur murmurs. 

Eames shifts into the male equivalent of Eve—all broad blond sunshine, chiseled jaw. “Adam, you mean.”

“Adam.” Arthur chuckles as he leans in. “Yes, I suppose he’ll do.”


	3. A Breath of Fire

“We meet again,” Arthur says. He lifts the spoon he was stirring in his coffee and places it delicately on the saucer underneath his china teacup.

They’re sitting on a picturesque set of wrought-iron chairs at the top of a very tall hill. The Tuscan countryside is spread out below them, rolling green punctuated with cypresses and crepuscular rays of light. It’s a sunrise, Eames decides, and suddenly the dream seems brighter.

“Because you keep rejecting the perfectly capable prostitutes I send your way,” Eames replies, crossing his arms over his chest. “You’d think that after the first three times, someone would take a hint.”

“I don’t want them,” Arthur says, as infuriatingly calm and sure as always. “I want you.”

“And you’re unaccustomed to not getting what you want, are you?”

“I am,” Arthur says with a conspiratorial smile that’s doubtless melted scores of unsuspecting hearts. “Are you going to hold it against me if I don’t want to start now?”

Eames looks away, refusing to be charmed. “I don’t do regulars. It’s not personal.” That second part’s a lie, but thankfully lying is one of the things Eames _does_ do, and well.

“You know, a friend of mine comes to your agency. Often. He’s how I found out about the whole business of dream prostitution to begin with. Told me I could try it once, but to never do it twice because it’s too easy to get sucked in. To lose track of what’s real and what’s not.” Arthur snorts softly. “Hypocrite.”

“So that’s what brought you here, then? Referral from a friend?” Eames raises an eyebrow. “Have I met him?”

“Maybe, but I don’t think so. He came to you guys looking for something specific,” Arthur says. “You don’t do specific, right?”

“It’s not about specificity, per se.” Eames lifts one shoulder. “I take on the people who claim they don’t know what they want and ferret out whatever it is they’re searching for. Everyone always knows, deep down. I merely articulate it so they don’t have to.”

Arthur sits back, his expression thoughtful. “I didn’t think anyone could be as good as my friend claimed. And I was right—except for you.”

“My my, you do know how to make a girl feel special.” Eames leans forward, offering an excellent view of the cleavage of the Persian 30-something woman he’s wearing. He’s tired of the questions and ready for the sex—which is usually more straightforward and less likely to head in troubling directions.

Arthur looks, but isn’t distracted. Eames frowns a little at that. “I was wondering if I could ask you a question.”

“You can do whatever you wish,” Eames says it lightly, but there’s something weighty in Arthur’s tone, beyond yet another lunge or parry in their sparring. Eames readies himself; perhaps today is the day he will finally hear the secret so terrible it’s taken months for Arthur to reveal. A sex act, or something that’s nothing to do with sex at all. “You always do, anyway.”

Arthur cocks his head to one side. “How did you get into doing this?”

Eames starts for a split-second, but recovers quickly; he doesn’t think Arthur notices. “Why, are you looking to save me from the tragic past that’s driven me down the path of selling my mind and body for money?”

“Save you?” Arthur chuckles. “I’d like to see someone try. I’m not interested in damsels in distress. I’m--”

“Curious, yes?” Eames shrugs. “Unfortunately, the story’s really quite dull. Scion came and offered a job. I took it, and I’ve been plying my trade here ever since.”

“Except that’s not even half the story.” Arthur studies Eames in a way that reminds them of when they first met: calculating, shrewd, doggedly determined. “How you got into dreamshare, how you became so good at what you do.”

“And what if I were to turn the question on you?” Eames counters. “Would you be so forthcoming?”

“We both know there’s nothing about my past you haven’t already figured out. Your job is to figure it out.” Arthur spreads his hands in front of him, palms up. “I’m ex-military. I worked in an experimental dreamshare program until it was dissolved, leading everyone involved to be discharged under strict gag orders. I tried to go back to normality, tried to live the straight and narrow—but what’s the mundane compared to the fantastic, to the impossible made possible? Who could stay away once they’ve had a taste?”

“You’ve stripped away the mystery, Arthur,” Eames says, voice light as he stands up. “I’m afraid you’re simply not half as fun anymore.”

Arthur leans across the table to catch Eames’ wrist. “ _You_ are part of the fantastic, the impossible made possible. That’s why I keep coming back.”

Eames looks down at his hand. “Little old me?”

“You.” Arthur’s fingers skim up Eames’ arm, his elbow, his shoulder. “That’s what I want. That’s why I keep coming back. I want to see you.”

Eames smiles genially, blandly. “This is me.”

“The real you. Not Eve, not Adam, not another one of your creations.” Arthur stands as well. “I want the reflection you see in the mirror when you’re awake.”

“What’s the mundane compared to the fantastic?” Eames peers up at Arthur through his lashes. “Sad, boring reality compared to perfection?”

“I don’t know.” Arthur cups Eames’ jaw. “I guess that’s what I want to find out.”

Eames doesn’t know why he does it. Or, more accurately—he doesn’t _want_ to know why he does it. Regardless of reason, a bullet discharged can never be recalled, can't be stopped before it lodges deep in someone’s kidney, their liver, their heart.

Eames cycles through three forgeries before shifting, lightning-fast, to his true self. But all it takes is that momentary flicker and Arthur knows.

“This is you,” Arthur says, voice hushed as he takes Eames’ face into his hands. There shouldn’t be any difference between the way they feel on the skin of a forgery as opposed to his own. That doesn't negate the visceral jolt that accompanies the sketch of Arthur’s thumb against Eames’ stubble, the twitch of his index finger next to Eames’ lip.

Eames waits while Arthur steps back, circles and examines him from every angle. As the study drags on, Eames finally says in something alarmingly close to his own voice and accent, “Well? How does the mundane measure up?”

Arthur smiles, and ceases his pacing. “You are extraordinary. But you already know that.” He puts a possessive arm around Eames’ waist and pulls him in for a kiss. Bears him onto the ground, which has changed from grassy hillside to the firm mattress of a king-sized bed.

When they pull away between kisses for breath, Arthur gestures at the sleek studio apartment surrounding them and says, “My place. You show me yours, and I’ll show you mine.”

Eames gives the apartment a discreet scan and notes the elegant steel bookshelf with rows and rows of blurred-out titles; the chrome fruit bowl on the coffee table, filled to the brim with apples; the framed photo of two women with coloring and facial features similar to Arthur on the nightstand.

“And here I thought I knew everything I needed to already.” Eames reaches down to squeeze Arthur’s prick through his trousers.

“I’m a complicated man,” Arthur says as he straddles Eames’ hips. “Or haven’t you heard?”

“I don't believe everything I hear.” Eames rolls them both over so Arthur’s lying on his back. A thought later and Arthur’s naked, dick curving upwards against his stomach.

“Suspicious.” Arthur loses interest in objecting when Eames ducks down to lick the head of his cock, the underside of the shaft, the slit. After he’s teased enough to sufficiently show off the virtues of his mouth, he takes Arthur’s dick in all the way.

Arthur’s got a good dick: clean, not too large or embarrassingly small, no odd growths, decent shape with a bit of a curve to the left. It’s not difficult to go down on him, not difficult to moan and suck like he’s greedy for it. Eames waits until Arthur’s pushing towards the edge of orgasm to pull off, earning him a frustrated groan and thrust up.

Before he can get too cranky, however, Eames settles astride Arthur’s lap. Attention recaptured, Eames pulls his shirt off, arching his back and stretching a little more than strictly necessary as he does so. Once the shirt’s been tossed in a corner, Eames takes Arthur’s hand and guides it to the bulge in Eames’ trousers.

Arthur sucks in a shaky breath before undoing the fly and pulling Eames’ prick out gently. Eames crawls forward to rut against Arthur’s abdomen as he slides out of his trousers, makes them disappear completely while Arthur goes to work biting and sucking at his neck.

Eames sits back to let Arthur take in the view for a moment before sinking onto his dick with an ease and fluidity only possible in dreams. Eames moans when he’s fully seated, undulating his hips at a pace designed to keep Arthur pleased but not apt to come immediately.

Arthur’s hands come up to move restlessly over Eames’ hips, as if torn between the desire to wrest control away or allow it to be taken from him. Arthur finally settles on jerking Eames off, wrist moving in smooth counterpoint to Eames’ rocking.

Eames smiles down at Arthur—feeling, perhaps, fond—and picks up the pace, working Arthur hard until he’s gasping, “Come on, I wanna see. I wanna see you come.”

Eames has ejaculated countless times in dreams, and can do it practically on demand. Obviously, some situations require more effort. But for the most part it’s just another series of muscle contractions dressed up with varying amounts of fluid excretion, depending on client preferences. With some clients—the more interesting ones, the more skilled, the ones that cross the line from mediocre-looking into attractive—it almost feels less like work. With Arthur, it’s become something like easy habit.

Eames comes with more semen than usual for theatricality’s sake. Arthur’s not terribly fond of jizz getting everywhere and making him messy, so Eames is sure to direct it up, landing primarily in his own chest hair, a few stray drops reaching his chin and mouth. Eames swipes his lower lip with his tongue and Arthur moans. He comes a few thrusts and a grunt later.

Once Arthur’s body goes slack and relaxed, Eames rolls onto the bed, clean but for a slight sheen of sweat to highlight the definition of his body. He leaves his hair sex-rumpled and lips reddened.

Arthur opens his eyes a few minutes later and grins lazily, seeming to appreciate the view. “Want something to drink? I should be fully stocked here.”

“I’ll have one of whatever you're having,” Eames replies, hoping it’s something he can drink without gagging. 

“Water then.” Two bottles appear on the bed. Arthur props himself up on one elbow. “Want the grand tour?”

Eames grabs a bottle. “But of course.”

“Over there is the kitchen.” Arthur points to each part of the room. “That’s the dining area, which conveniently doubles as the living area and the foyer and the study. There’s my closet, and that’s the bathroom. _Et voila_. You have just experienced the dazzling wonder of my palatial home.”

Eames tosses the empty water bottle over the side of the bed. “A vast lair indeed.”

“I don’t have a shark that shoots death-rays, if that’s what you’re implying.” Arthur smiles, wide and easy. He touches Eames’ chest in a manner that’s more affectionate than sexual.

“That wasn’t quite the naughty thing I was imagining, no.” Eames leans into Arthur’s touch, bends down to nip his earlobe.

Arthur laughs, makes a comment about the prevalence of sharks in dens of iniquity, and Eames replies almost nonsensically to make Arthur laugh again. They continue talking, with Eames in his own skin in this facsimile of Arthur’s home, listening while Arthur tells stories about his life, his family, his past. Eames watches the animated expressions of his face, the way his hands sketch out elegant shapes in the air, and it’s companionable, relaxing. Fun. 

A few of the clients Eames works with are handsome. Some are even intelligent and have personalities that resemble something approaching likable. It’s too easy to feel connected to someone when probing their most intimate fantasies, seeing them at their most vulnerable. Even easier when you’re pretending to be someone they’ve spent their whole life searching for. The lines between self-delusion and reality can become blurred—and not only on the client’s side.

Which is why he doesn’t do regulars, doesn’t let his clients meet him as ‘Eames.’ There are walls, barriers to remind him that this is all an elaborate game of mind and money.

Arthur smiles, warm voice threatening to light a spark somewhere Eames had thought locked and unreachable. Eames is starting to realize that his supposedly unassailable walls were never anything more than wavy lines in the sand: shallow, fragile—washed away with a current that’s already come and gone.

* * * * * *

“I don’t think I can do this anymore,” Eames says when he wakes up, the smell of Arthur’s hair lingering in his nostrils.

Yusuf looks up from where he’s winding up PASIV tubing. He doesn’t seem surprised. “Then don’t.”

“That easy, is it?”

Yusuf inclines his head to one side, affable charm to mask a poison-dipped dagger of a mind. They’re not friends, not really, but Eames sometimes wonders what it’d be like to have Yusuf as an enemy. He hopes the day never comes where he has to find out. “Could be.”

And so it is. The next evening, after Eames has finished packing his clothes and meager possessions into a bag, he finds an old, disused PASIV under his bed along with a single vial of Somnacin. The machine is outdated, several of the pieces are broken or missing, and there’s only tubing enough to connect one person. But for all that—it’s a start.

Eames walks out of the Scion complex and doesn’t look back.


	4. Snake Eyes

“You’re a difficult man to track down, Mr. Eames.”

Eames studies the craps table before him, wonders if this will be his lucky roll. He pushes his pitiful pile of chips forward, throws the dice.

Nothing but snake eyes.

“Better luck next time,” the dealer says as she takes everything.

Eames ducks away from the table, pointedly avoiding the man who spoke. Anyone searching him out is probably bearing bad news or ill-fortune as their cargo.

“You’re just going to ignore me?”

Eames stops when it becomes clear he isn’t going to be able to shake his tracker. “Usually when a man goes to great lengths not to be found, it means he’s not interested in making new friends.”

“Maybe. But I'm not so new, and I think you’ll want to hear what I have to say.” The noise of the casino around them seems muted, as if someone had turned the volume dial all the way down. And as the words echo in Eames’ mind, something familiar emerges about the man’s voice—a quality Eames once knew from a lifetime ago.

Eames holds a hand out in front of him and watches it twist into that of a child’s, then a young woman’s, then a gnarled old man’s. He schools his expression into neutrality. “What is it you want, Arthur?”

Arthur looks a few years older but barely, hair slicked straight back instead of loose. His body is as trim as ever, wrapped in a three piece suit paired with more practical shoes. Still gorgeous. Still knows it. 

Eames waits for a dreadfully predictable response--something like, _I’m here to see you_ , or, _you haven’t changed at all_. But instead Arthur says, “I’m not here to extract from you.”

Something akin to alarm begins to swell up in Eames’ gut. No projection--regardless of how lifelike--has ever had the capacity to surprise him. Not like the real thing. “Am I supposed to take you at your word?”

“Have I ever lied to you?” Arthur parries. “Besides, if I wanted your secrets, I’d already have them and we wouldn’t be talking right now.”

“Bold words.” Arthur’s barely said six sentences and already Eames can feel the intractable pull forwards, the way Arthur makes him want to throw everything else down in order to step back into the ring, see who can draw first blood. “But it’s always good to hear that the people who break into my mind have only the noblest intentions.”

“I never said anything about noble.” Arthur smiles, and that’s the same as well--irresistible challenge, written in an arrow’s bow. “I’m putting together a team.”

Eames glances around the casino, jaw tightening when he realizes that none of the projections seem perturbed at all. What this probably says about his subconscious’ feelings is likely not lost on Arthur, either. “There are plenty of good thieves out there.”

“This isn’t another corporate espionage job,” Arthur says as he steps forward. “I need someone who makes the impossible possible. Someone to help me do what can’t be done.”

Eames should shoot himself out of the dream. He should run like hell and never stop running. He should— “After all this time, what could you possibly have to offer me?”

Arthur smiles like he already knows which way the dice will land. Like he’s always known. “Inception.”

 

fin


End file.
